


Starstruck

by coaldustcanary



Category: Agent Carter (TV), Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Crossover, Gen, Humor, Light Angst, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-30
Updated: 2016-09-30
Packaged: 2018-08-18 18:51:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,425
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8172166
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coaldustcanary/pseuds/coaldustcanary
Summary: Angie couldn't quite put her finger on it, but there was something just plain weird about the pair of tourists camped out at the corner table in the L&L Automat.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Gray Cardinal (Gray_Cardinal)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gray_Cardinal/gifts).



> My sincere apologies to GrayCardinal for not being familiar enough with Classic Doctor Who to have written a fic closer to your preferences in that fandom, but I hope you find this encounter entertaining!

Something was off about the _both_ of them, of that she was sure.

It wasn’t difficult for Angie to keep intermittent watch on the unlikely looking pair as she scrubbed dutifully at a crusting coffee stain on a table halfway across the room from where they sat. She kept her face tilted down toward the tabletop, but peered sideways now and then to keep unobtrusive watch of the duo in at the table near the front window. Really, she needn’t have bothered – their animated conversation had attracted every eye in the room, and the multitude of raised eyebrows and half-scandalized expressions on every face within view hadn’t seemed to give them even a moment’s pause.

“It is,” the woman hissed in an exaggerated whisper for at least the third time, by Angie’s reckoning, punctuating each syllable with a rap of her polished fingernails on the table. Dressed in a deep blue pantsuit, the redheaded woman’s smart outfit was as sharp as her cheekbones, but her manner was all barely-restrained excitement. Though her generous mouth had been stretched in a wide grin earlier, her lunch partner’s responses to her initial giddiness seemed to have fixed her lips in a pout.

“Naaaaah,” the man drawled dismissively. “Well…” he hesitated, jutting out his chin and scratching idly at the hint of stubble beneath his jaw. His expression suddenly became one of intense concentration. He looked a bit like a mad professor, if a young one, with his dark hair an untidy fall around his unfashionable sideburns, and his brown suit and jacket both well-rumpled by his animated movements. His companion leaned in, waiting expectantly.

“Nope,” he finally said, popping the p with relish and grinning, amusement writ clear across his Puckish features while the redhead groaned and slouched back in her chair. Angie stifled a snort of laughter at their interaction, covering it with a feeble dry cough and looking away. After clearing her throat and smoothing down her apron, she glanced back over at the table curiously, pretending to adjust the apron tie at her waist.

A pair of merry hazel eyes met her own as the man looked directly at her, his lips still pulled up in a rakish grin. Though his female companion was still muttering mutinously under her breath and squinting out at the street outside through the window blinds, he raised an eyebrow as Angie froze awkwardly.

And then he winked at her, deliberately, before turning back to his companion, while Angie almost jumped out of her shoes and retreated behind the counter, not daring to spare another glance their way.

“Oh, come on, now, Donna, don’t pout,” the man said as she passed their table. His accent was English and sort of…proper, but not at all like Peggy’s or Mr. Jarvis’s way of speaking. He almost drawled, if you could say that, though not in the same way as the fella she knew from Georgia. But the strange man drew out his vowels all the same between tight, proper consonants that tumbled together all staccato, as if he couldn’t bear to let silence reign even in the brief pause one would normally allow between individual words.

“I’m not pouting, spaceman,” the woman – _Donna_ – retorted. Though Angie kept herself busy rearranging this and that behind the counter and kept her eyes cast down, she was pretty sure if she’d dared to look up, she’d see a pretty impressive pout on Donna’s face. Her accent was English, too, Angie couldn’t help but notice - sturdier somehow than even Peggy’s voice of steel.

“Anyway, I know I’m right. You just don’t have any kind of taste, so you wouldn’t know one way or the other even if she walked up and smacked you one across the face,” Donna continued, punctuating the statement with a disdainful sniff.

“Riiiight.”

“Oh, wouldn’t that be brilliant, doctor? I would just die, I’m telling you,” Donna said, chuckling and then letting out a happy sigh. At the man’s muffled noise of dismay, Angie risked another curious glance in time to see Donna rolling her eyes dramatically and throwing up her hands at her partner’s dubious expression.

“Come on, it’s her signature thing, you know? From the one with the mob boss? Ooooh, whatsit called, _you_ know. Actually, you don’t, because you’re a ridiculous al…”

“Hey, Ang, sweetheart, are you in there, or off in la-la land again?” Sal drummed his spoon on his empty coffee cup, the sharp china rattle drowning out Donna’s words and dragging Angie back to her duties.

“Right here, Sal,” she said soothingly, snatching up the coffee pot and giving it a swirl to make sure there was enough of the stuff to top him off one more time. As she poured him another cup, Sal grunted and jerked his head toward the corner table where the unusual couple was still chatting animatedly.

“I don’t know why we gotta listen to that kind of nonsense. I’m tryin’ to eat my lunch here, not listen to the kind of bickering I get at home from my nag of a wife. That broad’s got a mouth on her like my mother-in-law. She’s been dead five years and I still have nightmares about just havin’ to listen to her yap.”

“Give it a rest, Sal, they’re paying customers the same as you,” Angie sighed. Sal only scowled more deeply, his lip curling with distaste.

“Yeah, well, I thought the Brits were supposed to have better manners.”

“And I was under the impression that Americans were tolerant and generous, but apparently standards aren’t what they once were,” Peggy said crisply, stepping up to the counter while barely giving Sal a second glance but offering Angie a warm, if wan smile. Sal, for his part, apparently hadn’t seen Peggy come in, either, but he snapped his jaw shut so firmly his teeth clicked.

Every L&L regular knew better than to mess with Peggy – or too much with Angie - and while Sal was a rude slob of a man, he wasn’t _entirely_ without sense.

“Peg!” Angie beamed with pleased surprise. “You’re back! C’mere. Let me get you something to eat,” she said hurriedly, setting down the coffee carafe and waving Peggy down to the end of the counter. Angie hurried down to the end as well, rubbing her hands off on her apron and pulling the other woman bodily into a tight hug once she’d rounded the corner. Peggy stiffened briefly, releasing a startled little ‘oof!’ at the sudden embrace. But her shoulders sagged a little under Angie’s arms, and Angie found herself squeezed gently in return.

“Thank you,” Peggy said gently, her lips curving into a proper smile this time. Angie stood back, and fussed over the other woman’s suit, plucking invisible lint from her shoulder and straightening her lapels from being slightly askew after the embrace. She nearly bounced on her heels to see her friend back and safe from wherever her service had taken her the past week, but something made Angie study Peggy's face a little longer. She wasn't entirely sure what she saw there, but she knew she didn't like it.

“You got time to sit and tell me about your trip, English?” Angie asked brightly, though she more than half-expected Peggy to reluctantly decline. But instead the other woman had hesitated, and Angie pounced.

“Oh, c’mon, you can take a few minutes to eat and rest your feet. Gimme a sec, just sit up here at the counter and I’ll get…” Already thinking ahead to what she could gather up the quickest to feed her friend, Angie had half-forgotten the strange duo in the window corner. But as she turned to the grill window, she caught just a glimpse of something that caught her eye once again.

Try as she might, she couldn’t help but freeze and watch ever-so-carefully out of the corner of her eye.

“Hey, English?” Angie murmured, holding herself unnaturally still. Peggy looked up and immediately tensed, her hand inching under her jacket.

“Do you…know those people?” Angie asked, tilting her head incrementally toward the pair at the window table, her brow furrowed with puzzlement. Keeping a neutral smile plastered on her face, Peggy turned a little while leaning an elbow casually on the countertop to see what had Angie so concerned.

The odd couple in the corner had ceased their lively, good-natured argument, and instead they were staring fixedly at Angie and Peggy. Angie had a suspicion that the look on the man’s face was something she’d heard Peggy refer to as “gobsmacked” a time or two, and he certainly looked like he’d been belted that hypothetical whack to the face his companion had been going on about. Donna, on the other hand, looked absolutely delighted.

Maybe even smug. She grinned and actually wiggled her fingers in a little wave at them. Angie had to firmly resist the immediate urge to wave back even as the man blinked rapidly and tugged on the woman’s sleeve.

“No. Hsst. Donna. Stop,” he muttered, picking up his coffee mug and taking a big gulp. He promptly proceeded to cough and sputter, his eyes widening comically.

“Oy, don’t drown, doctor!” Donna huffed. She lurched to her feet and around the table, giving the man a few swift smacks between the shoulder blades, prompting him to jerk straighter in his chair and only barely manage to swallow the mouthful of coffee, grimacing and sticking out his tongue.

“I could have sworn this used to taste so much better. As recently as last week,” he muttered roughly, peering down into the cup as if it had betrayed him.

(That’s what Angie figured he had to have been saying, anyway. Because what she thought she’d heard, “As recently as the last _me_ ,” didn’t make any sense at all.)

If anyone else in the automat had previously been pretending not to see them, no one was attempting to maintain that facade any longer. But Peggy was already walking over toward their table, and Angie hurried after her. The man, his brow furrowed and his messy hair falling into his eyes, was still muttering and glaring at his coffee cup. Donna, however, was actively bouncing in her seat.

“Hiii!” she said brightly, repeating the little self-conscious wave she’d given before.

“Yes, hello,” Peggy said, her voice pulled tight to Angie's trained ear. “Is there something I can do for you?” Donna’s jaw dropped, just a little, and she hastily exchanged glances with her doctor, who had finally put down his coffee mug, flicking his fingers at it vaguely, as if he wished to shoo it off the table. Donna laughed, though it sounded a little forced, and the doctor straightened up in his chair, his smile returning to his face.

“Oooh, well, no, actually, y’see,” he began amiably, reaching into the inside of his jacket, before the soft but distinctive metallic click froze him.

“Please don’t do that,” Peggy said quietly, but firmly, her thumb pressed carefully to the hammer she’d just deliberately pulled back to cock the firearm in her hand, half-hidden in her bag. Angie gasped, and both the doctor-fellow and Donna held out their hands in a placating gesture. But Peggy didn’t blink.

“I don’t know what you have in your pocket, or what you’re doing here, but this isn’t the place for it. Now you’re going to stand up, very slowly, and we’re going to leave and take this conversation across the street.” She didn’t remove her eyes from the pair of them as she took a step back.

“Angie, go back behind the bar,” Peggy continued. Donna’s eyes grew as big as saucers.

“I told you,” she hissed at the man. She kept her hands still and up, but she leaned in toward her partner.

“Look at the nametag,” Donna muttered from between her teeth, while her friend only groaned her name softly in apparent rebuke. Angie glanced down at the nametag on her chest and then back at the strangely excited woman, her eyes narrowing.

“Hey, whaddya mean? What's wrong with my nametag? Who _are_ you, anyway?” Angie snapped, while Peggy hesitated, looking away from the strange duo to the woman at her side and then back, pulling the weapon a few more inches from her bag.

“No-no-no-no, don’t do that, that’s not necessary, let me just show you, it’ll all make sense here, just let me show you…” The man had something in his hand, suddenly, as if conjured in that brief moment that both Angie and Peggy took their eyes from him – a badge of some kind, shiny and proper as he proffered it gingerly in their direction.

“I’m the Doctor, of course, and this is Agent Donna Noble.” The woman at his side made a stifled noise, biting her lip. Angie leaned in to peer at the badge with suspicion, and then up at this “Doctor.” This just kept getting stranger with every passing second.

“Agent… The Doctor? Doctor _Who_?” Angie demanded. He grimaced, his face screwing up briefly with irritation.

“Every time, ahh… Anyway. Just that, _The Doctor_ , code name, you know how it is,” he prattled on, dropping another wink on her.

“No, but _I_ do, so stop that,” Peggy cut in sharply. Angie noticed, suddenly, that Peg had not loosened her hold on the gun.

“And I know what that toy in your hand is, Doctor, so put it away, if you please.” The Doctor let the leather wallet around his badge fall shut and he tucked it away inside his jacket pocket with very deliberate slow and cautious motion. He watched Peggy closely all the while, tilting his head thoughtfully from side to side with a curious, delighted sort of expression.

“You're brilliant, you are. Can't fool you for a moment. How d’you manage to see it?” he asked. Though it seemed to Angie he was talking to himself, Peggy answered the question anyway.

“I don’t. But I know what that is all the same." The Doctor’s face fell, a little, and then he began prattling on, so briskly, in fact, that Angie could hardly understand a word.

“Oh. Ohhhh. Well, I imagine...yes. You…you were ess-oh-ee, weren’t you, yes, I remember now, and that means...” He paused, pursing his lips, then nodded to himself.

"Torch wood. They were rather more forthcoming with information during your time, weren't they? Makes sense, I suppose. War-time necessity, and all that. Plus Jack couldn't risk taking too much interest in anything going on in London, I expect. Too many timelines at risk." Angie had no idea what any of this could possibly mean. It meant something to both this Doctor and Peggy, though. Something sad moved behind his eyes as he said the words, and something tightened in the already sharp angle of her jaw.

“Are you talkin’ code now or something? Because I’m not sure I should be here for any of this,” Angie protested quietly, glancing over her shoulder at the rest of the restaurant. Peggy shook her head.

“You’re fine, Angie. They’re going to leave, now. I’m quite sure the Doctor and Agent…Noble have somewhere _else_ to be,” she said steadily.

“Awww, not so much as you'd expect, really” the Doctor interjected with a disarming grin.

"Rude, you are. You're gonna get us killed," Donna hissed, giving him a swift punch in the arm. The Doctor recoiled, rubbing over the spot with a sulky expression, as Angie tried to keep her eyes on them both all at once, gaze bouncing between the pair as if she was watching a tennis match.

"You're quite the merry jester, aren't you, Doctor? Is it truly all a game to you? It's havoc that gets left in your wake when you toddle off, while everyone else does the hard work of cleaning up." Peggy pitched her voice low, but to Angie it fairly vibrated with leashed anger. Angie gripped her apron tightly in suddenly sweat-damp hands. Donna was frowning deeply, biting her lip, while the Doctor only shook his head fractionally.

"It's not a game, Peggy Carter." At his side, Donna jerked as if she'd bitten her tongue, but the Doctor continued on, his voice steady and a little sad. "Not for any of us, but time goes on, and things will happen as they do, you'll find - to great joy and sorrow both. That's the way things happen, and they don't just flow around you, do they?"

"Don't," Peggy warned him - though against what, exactly, Angie couldn't see - shaking her head.

“Quite right, Director Carter,” he added. Angie felt lost, and for once Peggy looked just as confused. The redhead with the Doctor squeaked and drew breath to speak, but the Doctor took advantage of the momentary lull in the rapid-fire conversation to grasp her firmly her by the elbow and head for the door, tossing a disarming grin back over his shoulder.

“It was our very great pleasure, but it's time for us to go, now. Afternoon, ladies!” Donna let the slender man escort her to the door – Angie had the sudden and sure sense she could have broken free of his grip fairly easily - but for whatever reason, she only looked back, beaming at Angie while offering a final brisk wave, and called out a compliment for the meal she hadn't even finished.

Well, it had to have been the meal, right?

“I loved the pork!” made sense. Kind of. Though that ham sandwich was certainly nothing to write home about.

But it couldn't have been what Angie thought she heard - “I love your work!"

Not a chance.

* * *

 

"See, I _told you_ it was her. I loved watching her movies when I was a kid. And this is the best of all of them. Raffaela Nero - no nonsense and take-no-prisoners Mafia Queen!" Donna gushed in a harsh whisper, clutching the tub of popcorn to her chest with both arms and a smug expression. The Doctor peered over the rim of his specs at the ticket stub in his hand for the feature showing of _Black Star Rising_  they'd eventually settled upon at Donna's firm demand, before tucking it away in his pocket with a put-upon expression.

"Donna, I don't think..." he began, before an indistinct figure a few rows ahead of them turned about and briskly shushed at them. The Doctor held up his hands in surrender once again. He could feel Donna's glare as well, even in the dark theater.

" _I_ think you should watch a great actress of stage and screen work and shut your gob for once. Because I'm right. Angela Martin, apparently formerly known as Angie Martinelli, is about to grace your screen. And to think I met her, in the flesh!" Donna whispered excitedly.

"Yes, I suppose, Donna..."

" _Thank you_."

"Oh come on, I wasn't finished..."

"Could have fooled me."

What might have escalated into a pitched shouting match was prevented from further tit-for-tat by a quite stern repeat of the shushing from only moments before, and they both snapped their mouths shut, looking briefly abashed. Donna crunched a mouthful of popcorn mutinously, while the Doctor shifted in his seat.

"You're just fussed because you were wrong," Donna finally murmured.

"I wasn't wrong."

"Then you're just mad because Peggy Carter told you off." The awkward silence that followed Donna's amused accusation gave her pause, and she glanced sideways at the Doctor as the strains of the opening credits' orchestral arrangement began.

"Doctor..." she began, uncertainty in her soft voice. He shook his head, and Donna fell quiet once again.

"It's just...I hoped I might've run into her at a better time, if I was going to have the chance. Marvelous woman, Peggy Carter. The stuff of legends, really," he sighed wistfully, his eyes fixed on the film screen, his expression pensive. Donna peeked sideways once more, the corner of her mouth drawing up in a smile.

"Fanboy."

"Am not."

"Are so."

"Am not, Donna, she's just..."

" _SHHHHHH._ Will you two stop? Some of us are trying to watch a film, here!" Once more the pair of them fell into a companionable though uncertain silence.

"A bit," he finally admitted, truly whispering. Donna shifted the popcorn into her far arm, and though the Doctor drew breath to object, she used her newly-freed hand to grasp his and squeeze. His breath left him in a rush.

"I'm fine," he huffed.

"Of course you are," Donna murmured soothingly, giving his hand a final pat.

"Now hush up and watch the film, fanboy."


End file.
